I hope that, if you are interested and available, you'll join me and many others at the Occupy Wall Street one-year anniversary demonstrations. They begin tomorrow.
I don't have every goal—or method—in common with other protesters. Heck, I don't even support a "Robin Hood tax" on financial transactions. Also, I am too bourgeois and busy to be arrested for civil disobedience. But I do believe, along with many Occupy folks, that in many ways the institutions of our country unfairly favor the rich, and that many institutions unfairly conspire to keep poor people poor and uneducated—and to make working people ever more disposable and insecure. If I [...]
Last night, Occupy Miami was rousted from their encampment, with a few arrested (including photographer Carlos Miller). They have negligible local support, and are remote enough from the rest of the Occupy movement that they're pretty much on their own. (Good news: the camp-clearing was "carried out almost completely without violence," except for when they clubbed a dude.) The small organization will have to regroup without an encampment; it's a hard movement to sustain in isolation, though they say they'll try. (Hint: what a prime American location for an Occupy movement to move homeless people into foreclosed houses!) That's the opposite of Oakland, where Saturday's large [...]
By all accounts, Scandinavia is one of the most prosperous, peaceful and income-equal places to live in the world. Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark hold four of the top five spots in the World Democracy Index (the U.S. ranks 15th). The Scandinavian countries are all the way at the top of OECD’s ranking of the happiest countries in the world (the U.S. is 19th), and they’re all the way at the bottom of the CIA’s ranking of countries by income inequality (the U.S. is 40th out of 140).
But when, on October 15, rallies inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement were held around the [...]
Isn't "Occupy Our Homes," taking place today, the very heart of all the current messay political movements, where left and right can come together? After all, it kicks that sweet spot composed of libertarian anti-tax legal technicalities and loopholes, a conservative "get off my land" American ethos, and the liberal and leftist anti-corporate, anti-big-bank-bullies vision of freedom. Plus, it's got an actual "real America" vibe—not just for "coastal elites"! (Coastal elites are renters, and no one cares about them when they get evicted due to someone else's foreclosure. Though New Yorkers can take the 3 train to Brownsville at 1 p.m. today! "Bring housewarming gifts and [...]
After weeks of what Shon Kay at one point described to me as "march, cops, march, cops," this was going to be something new. Occupy Oakland was going shopping.
Shon has been an integral member of the Occupy Oakland media committee since its inception. When I hear critics say OO doesn't understand media relations, I think of people like Shon—and I think of plans like this one, and their role in the days since all the encampments were cleared.
Over the course of the week prior, Shon organized a group of participants who planned strategy. Last Friday, on the busiest shopping day of the year, about 25 gathered [...]
What’s next for the Occupy Wall Street movement as it regroups after its eviction from Zuccotti Park? A small but energetic group of New York City education activists hope the Occupiers will channel their rage toward Mayor Mike Bloomberg by taking a closer look at his local school reform record.
Last Friday at noon, some two-dozen of these protestors, many of them black and Latino parents with kids in the public schools, crowded the sidewalk on the east side of Zuccotti Park. Pack the book bags of our kids! Not the pockets of the rich!, they chanted. They mostly failed to attract the attention of the hard-core Occupiers—the tent-dwellers—who were [...]
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